Alphabet to invest $5 billion in Waymo

Google parent company Alphabet plans to invest five billion dollars in Waymo, its unit for autonomous vehicles, over the next few years. Meanwhile, the first minivans from Waymo's cooperation with Chinese manufacturer Zeekr are now on the road in San Francisco.

The new funding round will “enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving company,” Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s outgoing chief financial officer, said on Tuesday’s second-quarter earnings conference call, adding that Waymo is an “important example” of Alphabet’s long-standing investments.

“Alphabet has committed up to $5B to @Waymo,” Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana wrote via social media. “We are grateful for their immense vote of confidence in our team and recognizing the amazing progress we’ve made with our technology, product, and commercialization efforts.”

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stated in the conference call that Waymo is already providing 50,000 paid rides a week with its robotaxis, mostly in San Francisco and Phoenix. To date, two million journeys have been completed. In June, Waymo removed the waiting list and opened Waymo rides to all users in San Francisco.

Alphabet’s new investment in Waymo comes after Tesla postponed plans to unveil its robotaxi called CyberCab from August to 10 October. Recently, Croatian electric car manufacturer Rimac also announced ambitious plans for a robotaxi service.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s cooperation with Chinese car manufacturer Zeekr, which was announced at the beginning of 2022, is now bearing its first fruits. The first minivans jointly developed by Waymo and Zeekr are now on the streets of San Francisco. Visually, the vehicles developed for Waymo resemble the Zeekr Mix presented at Auto China in April.

According to Waymo, these are “less than a handful of vehicles” from Zeekr for the time being, reports the US specialised service Techcrunch. The vehicles are also not yet fully autonomous but must be driven by a safety driver. Nevertheless, the fact that Waymo has taken to the road with a roomier, purpose-built robotaxi signals the next phase of the company’s journey in autonomous vehicle technology, Techcrunch argues. Currently, Waymo is using a customised version of the Jaguar I-Pace for its commercial robotaxi deployments.

cnbc.com (investment), techcrunch.com (Zeekr cooperation)